Candid Photography and Other Musings

July 27, 2015August 20, 2015

Musings: Past Travel Summary Log

Dear Bots,

I have a confession to make; I have wanderlust. It is not something you outgrow either. I’m also a responsible sort of adult with bills to pay, and debt to get rid of, as such, travelling anywhere is hard. I’ve been fortunate to have visited some tourists cities in north america on the not terrible expensive side in recent years with friends.

Some adventure stories:

Vegas twice! 2013 and 2014Vegas 2013

El Boyfriendo – a very dry week of travelling. Found some awesome sales on tourist stuff. Got totally ripped off for show tickets. Had a blast and only lost 20 bucks gambling. Tour bus to the Hoover Dam neato. expedia.ca – not a bad experience, not the greatest. Also my first time flying in a real airplane… it was terrifying. There was this small connecting flight, less than 30 seats. Felt every turn of the plane, every bump….terrifying.

I went with a co-worker – and it was a very drunk visit indeed. With Help from
Vegas 2014

travelzoo, groupon and said co-workers guru level travel skills, it was a cheap drunk adventuring fun. Turned myself into a zombie by driving to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I got to drive on a roller coaster road of old Route 66. Got drunk after the road trip not during, I promise. We used expedia.ca to book the trip – it was a headache.NO MORE expedia.ca BOOKING EVER AGAIN.

Third time will be with El Boyfriendo, we’ve joked that we’d both be happy getting married in Vegas. Cliche and Corny I am.

New York twice! 2013 and 2014NYC 2013 – Tired but still had a blast.

By bus and NEVER AGAIN I also don’t recommend it to anyone, in fact both companies I make it a goal to steer all potential customers away. (If you do Private bus, don’t be the odd man out, do it in teams of 2 or 4. Seat
mates that you don’t mind falling asleep on your shoulder. Trust me.)

Best friend and her mother. Bus seat won’t recline because it was broken. Sigh. Getting off working a late 10 hour shift with no sleep, hit the bus with the high hopes that I’d sleep 8 hours to the big apple, that didn’t happen. I was a wired zombie when I hit the city. So much to see, so much to do, so much I didn’t do. And my first new york city taxi ride almost killed me.

Another good co-worker friend. Bus seat can recline but had a bitch (please note, it has been over a year, just thinking of this older lady brings on feelings of hatred and loathing for this lady, I also rarely will use swearing
48 hours no sleep, touring NYC 2014 and added a Long Island Ice Tea on top of that. —- ZOMBIE SHADICATS

and as a practicing atheist I don’t normally wish anyone to any sort of hell, but she’s still on that list) old bird that wouldn’t let me recline because her poor knees and refused to trade seats with me (who spent an hour explaining to her friend next to her that she jogged 5 kms daily… not impressed). Again another, didn’t Shadicats, the Zombie attempting to drink a Long Island Ice Tea running on no sleep in approx. 48 hours. 2013 get any sleep the night before, worked a hellish day of work, still held out hope I’d sleep on the bus especially with a sleep-aid in hand. Didn’t happen. My friend got photos of me looking absolutely ill from being up 48-50 hours straight and touring a city. Also didn’t help I ended my dinner meal with a long island ice tea. I was a bitchy, cranky zombie and my friend felt horrible for my experience (she got me to go with the promise of reclining seat since see above about last bus trip). But I got to nap in the MET, serious, 10-30 minute nap as my friend waited for coat check. Not a highlight of the trip, but just a cozy moment. A highlight was Tiffany’s and seeing the Empire State Building and goofing around in the MET and having my friend give a crap cig to a highly wealthy plastic surgeon walking bimbo.

Washington D.C. 2013 – side note, you are no longer allowed this close to the White House.

Both times with best friend and her mother. Both times I got a migraine on the first day of arrival. We travelled down via car. First time, I left travel plans in the hands of my best friends

Washington 2015 – a Smithsonian museum, which I lost track there was so many.

mother. An expert road tripper, who can cram so many things in one day, that your feet will bleed in protest. You might think I’m kidding at that last bit. By the second day, blisters bled, and I looked like a homeless person on the capitol lawn with shoes off, socks off. The kindness of a stranger who saw I was airing out bleeding feet and gave me a few band aids. I was 99% sure that kind person was also an experienced traveller. — Lesson learnt, break shoes in weeks ahead of planned marathon of walking “vacation”.

Second time, I took more responsible with help planning it. Travelled by car again. Found the cheapest, oldest, closest hotel to all the tourist stuff and was impressed. Hotel Harrington if I visit a third time, I’ll use you again. It was a triple bill vacation, the famed Cherry Blossoms festival, japanese festival, and something else I’m forgetting. This time, I kidnapped my best friend and left her mother in the go with of a good cousin of theirs that joined us. Had a blast. Did a bus tour, boat tour, hit a few monuments I missed last time. Ate at some good restaurants. In fact, I had steak when I possible could get my hands on it. I’m a reformed veggie who seems to be slowly falling into the slippery meat-eating slow of expensive food. Got to wander around Georgetown. Splendid time.

Florida 2014 – DISNEY WORLD (Once, so far…. although, if El Boyfriendo has any say in this matter, we’ll be going back soon)

Rarity, getting near the Walt Statue and Castle without a horde of other tourists to ruin the photo. Disney 2014

El boyfriendo and I, did the unthinkable… We went to a travel agent to plan this trip. I’m a bit of a control freak sometimes when it comes to travelling…. If I’m not with someone who has done it before, I don’t normally hand over the reigns to someone else. A quality, El Boyfriendo is fine with because that means he doesn’t need to worry about where we sleep at night…eta. We went with CAA after checking out Marlin Travels and a few others. CAA just happened to be the friendliest, easiest, no hassle booking. To the point, El Boyfriendo states we will always book with a CAA agent… not sure how I feel about this, but eh. DISNEY IS THE MOST MAGICALLY PLACE ON EARTH. You see all those tv ads… it is exactly like that, but with longer lines — in fact, at Disney, you will learn to queue with the best of them. And you look at the lines and go “That doesn’t look too long,” they hide the lines very well. You see they have a “wait time, 2 hours” that means 4 hours. Double the time. Other wise, it is pretty fun.Truly, mucho fun to be had. The only misfortune we had was eating at a questionable buffet and then hitting a roller coast twice in a row afterwards. That day was over quickly by us going back to our hotel room and sleeping off whatever hit us. We also had the misfortune of going in the last week before Florida schools start back. An apparent over-crowded time to go that from sources, ranks up there with Christmas and Spring Break. Le sigh. El Boyfriendo wants to go back, that is how much fun he had… myself, I’d rather do Vegas again, less kids and not so many handicapped motorized vehicles.If anyone can please tell me what is up with 5-6-7-8-9 year olds being pushed around in rented baby strolls, I’d appreciate it. Is it a Disney World thing? Is it an American thing?

Buffalo 2011

Friends independent movie première that I did one SFX free. I got to check out the zoo (made me a little depressed) in the snow. Had a good time all around.

East Coast Canada 2012

Full Moon Night out east 2012

Road trip to the very tip of Nova Scotia. It was glorious, just me and El Boyfriendo. All except the Quebec parts. I unfortunately hit Quebec during its annual road construction. Next time, we go via Maine. I had fresh seafood. So fresh, it still had grit, dirt and small stones that cracked my tooth. Seafood is now off my menu forever.

Dentist: “It looks like we may have to do a root canal…”

Me: “No.”

Dentist: “…”

Thankfully, the dentist attempted to repair said tooth without the root canal and was happily successfully. Root canals are expensive pains. Literally and figuratively. Avoid them, do regular brushes and don’t ignore tooth pain, or infections.

Backcountry canoe trip in Algonquin Park. Blanket was used as mosquito net… as that year the mosquitos were very very very aggressive. May 2010

El Boyfriendo almost died in Algonquin Park on a canoe trip. And we both almost died in Frontenac Park by a bear. Let’s just say, I can’t get El Boyfriendo to go deep country camping again. We have a very abused pop-up tent trailer now that I painted in classic Jurassic Park colour scheme. El Boyfriendo still not thrilled by camping and has veto any more week-long camping trips. My poor camping heart gets weekends only and that the forecast for that is rare now. This of course saddens me and my wanderlust.

Sunset, camping, June 2011

Frontenac Backcountry camping 2011 – was delightful compared to the year before. We still almost died due to bear encounter. We did magically get swarmed by dragonflies, thousands were all over our campsite and not a single mosquito – it was a blessing.

This has helped me ease the pains of wanderlust. I still want to pick up and visit elsewhere but for now, doing (short?) summary of my limit exploits have helped. Perhaps one day I’ll get to that around the world trip, or euro-trip, or visit the rest of Canada trip – dream. Dream.